


glory, glory, it's good to be me

by Anonymous



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Growing Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 05:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13001097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: He starts throwing punches because it seems like the best way to shield himself.(Or: "Chaos never happens if it's never seen.")





	glory, glory, it's good to be me

**Author's Note:**

> everyone: please, no more em dashes, no more–  
> me, cackling gleefully: witness me
> 
> In all seriousness, thanks to my neighbors for being constant support pillars throughout these few months, and for not yelling super loudly past reasonable hours. 
> 
> Title is from "Real Thing" by Tune-Yards, summary quote is from "Days and Days" from Fun Home. Warning for a mention of a relative of a character that committed suicide, and the main character's subsequent internalized homophobia.

I. He starts throwing punches because it seems like the best way to shield himself.

 

Boys are not taught to be soft.

 

In a lot of rinks, the bright light forms a mirrored surface with which it’s easy to view the quick twist back and forth of a stick barrel, the inhuman focus and slight feeling of invincibility that makes you an alien when you look too hard at yourself. The lights seem terrifying and empowering all at once – he’s given a stage to perform and a microscope through which his performance will be judged. He’s Calgary’s golden child, the Western Conference’s worst nightmare, a fan favorite and the number one target for death threats all the same.

 

People are fucked up. He tries not to take it too personally. 

 

The contradiction feels unnervingly personal anyways. The more he thinks about his image and tries to extrapolate it to his own life, the worse it feels.

 

Okay, he tries not to take it personally, but that’s kind of hard when the part you’re playing is what you see reflected in how people treat you.

 

 

  
II. The depth of his capacity for anger scares him.

 

Hockey is one of the few sports where you’re allowed to use the full force of your body. Guys don’t often know how hard they can check until they’re flexed and barrelling up to you at twenty miles an hour. They don’t know which comments will stick with you after the game, making your stomach hurt as you lay awake tossing and turning in a hotel bed in a nameless city, wondering why it is you do what you do, what’s out there after  _ this  _ is over.

 

There is no substitute for pushing as hard as you can to find out how much you can move.

  
  
  


 

III. Call him an adrenaline junkie, but instigating is one hell of a way to get a rush.

 

Matt can’t say things plainly at the right time, always too blunt or too flowery. Once someone had asked him if he was okay after getting into a fight and splitting his knuckles open, and he didn’t know what to say, just shrugged and flaunted his bandages instead. It’s easy to joke about something, easy to lace up your skates and let muscle memory take over. When they have two days off, it feels like something is missing, as if he has nothing better to than push people around. It’s messed up, that he gets a rush out of being the one to start the fight, and yet, it isn’t so much the fight as the context around it.

 

Auston once asked what it’s like to play physically like his dad did. Matt explained it as best he could, comparing it to having a huge toolbox. There are things you always need – a hammer to secure, a ruler to measure, a pencil to calculate, a screwdriver to assemble. Then there are things you only need in certain situations, or things that depend on others to work – you can’t have a hammer without nails, just like how you can’t have a scrum without an instigator, or the right timing to start a fight without discretion as to whether or not the team needs the motivation.

 

It’s more than just a goon role, okay? It’s skill balanced with cleverness, riding an edge between breaking the rules and just being really effective at getting people flustered and distracted.

 

If minor injury happens to come from it, so be it.

 

 

  
  
  
IV. “All talk” isn’t a bad thing to be if you know the right things to say. If you don’t, well –

 

Mikael makes breakfast the morning after they play the Kings, cracking eggs patiently and scrambling them, inexact, perfectly routine. Matt’s too awake for this hour of the morning, sitting down at the island of the kitchen after grabbing coffee, roasted dark with sweetener.

 

It’s eerily quiet, the silence piercing through the feeling of home, making things uncomfortable, like how the living room of his childhood house used to feel. Matt clears his throat, taking up the space.

 

“Morning.”

 

“Morning,” Mikael echoes, and doesn’t look up to him. 

 

“What?” Matt accosts him after a moment of pause. Mikael sighs, turns down the heat on the pan and meets his eyes.

 

“Why do you choose the words you do on the ice?”

 

Mikael’s voice is deadly serious. Matt’s heart starts beating faster as he realizes what he’s referring to.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Yeah, you do.”

 

Matt scowls, steadies his voice and his shoulders. “I don’t know. It comes out like everything else, heat of the moment, just like the other guys. I’m not like that off the ice.”

 

Mikael’s voice rises. “You know damn well that shit stays with you, sometimes. I don’t want to hear that excuse.”

 

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll stop if you’re so pissed about it.”

 

“Hey,” Mikael snaps, suddenly angry.

 

“What?”

 

The air is stiff in the kitchen.

 

“My brother was gay.”

 

“Was?”

 

“He left us last year.”

 

“I–” Matt starts, and then he can’t finish it, because what are you supposed to say to a teammate who lost a family member, how was he supposed to know, he could’ve said things differently if he had just  _ known _ – 

 

And that’s Mikael’s point, right there.

 

“Yeah,” Mikael says, mumbling.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Mikael steps over with the frying pan. He puts some eggs onto a plate and pushes it towards Matt. Then he sighs, heavy against the openness of the white walls.

 

“I’m going out to run errands and clear my head,” Mikael says, and Matt nods, lets his stomach twist, lets himself feel the full guilt and shame swirling in his stomach as soon as the door closes.

 

Luke’s lips were warm when he kissed Matt. His hands shook. His inexperience betrayed him, but he was taller, and Matt had to tilt his head up to reach, to kiss back to decide if he liked it or not.   
  
Mikael’s car pulls away and Matt puts his fork down, presses his closed fists to the granite and inhales, rough.

 

He exhales a scream, and everything just – breaks.

 

It’s been three weeks since he last let himself cry. He hates feeling like he’s a burden on others, self-sacrifices to toe the line between instigator and abuser, between the forward sense of aggravation and the hurt that others bestowed on him, not even spotting him for its weight, leaving him to struggle until he was strong enough to carry it.

 

Some wounds don’t heal quickly.

 

The ache in his hands from hitting the counters lasts for four hours. The marks on the back of his hands take a few days more.

 

 

  
  
  
V. Sometimes things he’s trained to want become fulfilling as his own.

 

He calls his dad late one night after a time delay game. Keith picks up on the first ring.

 

“Hey kid,” he says, and Matt deflates.

 

“Hey,” Matt responds, strained. He hits the closet door and mouths a curse. He was going to  _ tell him _ this time, damn it, was going to finally say something before he came home for Christmas. “Did you watch the game?”

 

And look, okay, it wasn’t like his dad was abusive. He just – had opinions, had well-informed ideas of how Matt’s life should go, and Matt didn’t know better to contest.

 

It sucks that there are zillions of ways to quantify hurt and yet his parents aren’t tiger parents, aren’t abusive parents, never hard on him, always supportive. It’s on him not opening up. That’s how he’s reasoned it for years, how he’ll continue to instead of mourning what could’ve been.

 

Hockey is his job. It’s his first love. It’s his identity, his physicality, his social climate and his family’s common thread. But it’s so intertwined with memories of his dad’s unavailability and outbursts, the frustration and confusion Matt felt in middle school when he was trying to learn how to  _ really  _ skate and his dad wasn’t praising him, no matter how hard he pushed off the balls of his feet and let his skates abrade the ice mercilessly. He would come back to the end of the rink, after every lap, and his dad would look past him, at the AAA banners on the wall, lost in thought.   
  
He and Matt’s mom fought pretty badly for a while when Matt was in eighth grade. 

 

It’s not like their home life was aggressive or anything, there was just this constantly humming undercurrent of unease whenever Matt squared his shoulders and asked when dinner was, or if he could get a ride to the rink.

 

There were friends, through the years, who didn’t get nearly enough context, just hip-checked him and changed the subject.

 

In retrospect, the tectonic shift of retirement probably eroded his dad’s resolve, left him grappling for purpose. Just to have something leave you like that, after decades of focus– 

 

Sometimes he’d lay awake with Mitch in a hotel room and realize that  _ fuck, that’s going to be me _ . He chose not to go to college. He’s taking a huge risk, he’s faceless, he’s angry and roguish and an agitator and a polarizing figure, he’s worthless and an absolute draft gem. He’d shut his eyes against the panic until Mitch rolled over to the sound of his shallow breathing, placed a hand gently on the center of his chest.

 

“Y’know I’m here to talk, yeah?”

 

“I don’t know what I’m  _ doing _ –”

 

It still happens, drunk, sober, with someone or alone.

 

Alone always sucks more though. 

 

Tonight he skated his heart out until catching his breath usurped the fear of falling, and hangs up on his father, drinks until he can sleep without dreams.

 

 

  
  
  
VI. Aggression is not equivalent to courage in its value or in its power.

 

He can’t bring himself to text Luke for three weeks.

 

When he does, he’s delirious and it’s two in the morning after a tough win.

 

He rolls over, careful not to wake Sean across the room, and picks up his phone. 

 

_ Hey, I just wanted to say im thinking of you and that I would really appreciate it if you’re able to talk thru some stuff with me. mostly personal stuff. I understand if u don’t tho. _

 

It’s a few seconds before the bubble is popping up, and Matt’s eyes readjust. Sean is snoring.

 

_ I think I would rather call you rn?  _ Luke says.  _ if you wanna talk now that is. _

 

_ yeah gimme a sec _ .

 

Matt grabs his keycard and slides out of the room, phone in hand, sits in the stairwell. The noise echoes too much. For all his fearlessness, doing things despite the risk and moving past things too fast so that he doesn’t have to dwell, he can’t handle someone overhearing this.

 

It’s easier to be loud and gutsy, most of the time. The dial tone feels liminal, the lights too bright.

 

Luke picks up on the second ring.

 

“I miss you,” Luke says, hushed, and he hasn’t spoken to Matt in  _ months  _ since– 

 

Matt isn’t going to cry, this isn’t how it works. They had the chance, and it wasn’t fucking distance, it was the space he needed at the time, the capacity to be open to someone else inhabiting it for a little while.

 

It wasn’t some story where they saw each other at the draft and then never again. They called each other once a week and talked shit for hours, and then Matt realized, and he stopped calling, and Luke got pissed, and it was easier to fight and put himself through hell, and he couldn’t own up to the love that had wrapped its way around him until he couldn’t find the surface, looking up, couldn’t escape its hold.

 

Luke and Auston know him better than almost anyone.

 

He’s wanted them in different ways, Luke as a partner, Auston as a lover. He’s wanted them too much, Luke’s hand wrapped around him and Luke’s steady breath against his ear as Matt choked on the care in the tips of Luke’s fingers, suffocated happily under Luke’s body. He’s wanted them for too long, Auston’s eyes wide when Matt kissed him when they were sixteen and Auston was just starting to really fill out in his shoulders, Auston’s voice quiet by the side of the pool when he asked Matt if he’d  _ ever looked at a boy and kinda felt weird, like you wanted his hands on you? _

 

Matt would sooner die than want them as anything but independent of each other. He’s gone too far before, built the prison around himself, made his own problems, as his dad says.

 

“Hey,” Luke says, voice curling around the top of Matt’s neck, touching the bottom of his skull, stiflingly gentle.

 

Matt starts to cry.

 

“I miss you too,” he says, and Luke whispers a mournful  _ oh, babe  _ from Iowa.

 

“I need to tell you something.”

 

“Yeah?” Luke’s eyes are probably soft in the way he gets when he’s worried.

 

“I think I love boys,” Matt says, and his chest hurts. He closes his eyes, rests his head against the wall. He doesn’t know where the words come from. His voice tears him apart, leaves him shaking, like he just skated three minutes and needs to throw up. “I think I loved you.”

 

Luke sighs. “Matt,” he says, quiet, and Matt knows better than to push. “I thought so,” he says, and Matt inhales, exhales, feels his lungs seize up.

 

“I really cared for you,” Luke continues. It’s like closure and reopening a wound all at once, blood spilling like a symbol of finality, he’s here, he missed his chance, he’ll have to heal before trying again with someone else.

 

“I’m sorry,” Matt whispers, helpless. He can visualize Luke nodding, feel the ghost of Luke’s fingers over the back of his hand. “I’m really sorry.”

 

“Don’t be,” Luke says. “Maybe one day, yeah? Once we both figure it out.”

 

Matt nods, as if Luke can hear him. “Okay.”

  
  
  
  


 

VII. It gets exhausting, being expected to be  _ on  _ all the time.

 

“You’re allowed to want,” Auston says, quiet, and Matt can’t raise his head. “It’s okay. Me and Luke. I can’t tell you what you want to hear, that I’m all in, because I have Toronto. I have Mitch, but–”

 

“It’s okay. You don’t owe me anything.”

 

“That isn’t the point. I’m sorry I said that some things are mistakes, because clearly you pulling away wasn’t a mistake, and I understand that now.”   
  


“It doesn’t excuse me.”

 

He raises his head and Auston’s there, sitting cross legged at the foot of his bed while everyone opens gifts downstairs. It’ll be Christmas soon. Their families are both here. It’s supposed to feel unifying, Hallmark-perfect, but it’s different when you’re just obliging your mom and siblings. 

 

Taryn and Brady continue to grow up and Matt feels this sense of loss in the distance between Calgary and St. Louis and Boston. He plays like his father, but Keith has always coached Brady for that extra second, given him the pardon when Matt was held to the rules. Then there’s the climate of high school and the feelings of insufficiency and the same fatherly estrangement that his sister continues to parse through. 

 

“I know, but you needed to take the space for yourself,” Auston says, quiet, and meets Matt’s eyes.

 

He hasn’t spoken to Auston, not like this, in a long time, either. Auston searches his face, and he must find something worthwhile, gathers Matt into his arms.

 

“I’m still learning too,” Auston says, quiet. “I’ve known for a long time. Knowing is different than being. Let yourself breathe, okay?”

 

Matt nods, lets himself clutch at Auston, pressing the two of them together until all he can feel is the hard plane of Auston’s chest, the pressure Auston’s arms have on his sternum. 

 

“Are you and Mitch–” Matt asks, raising his head, and then regrets it immediately. “You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to.”

 

Auston pulls away. Matt can feel Auston’s breath on his face, hyper-aware of how his heart races as they stare at each other dumbly, closer than they’ve allowed themselves to be in months. It feels vulnerable, shaky, like Auston could break Matt with one careful hit.

 

“No,” Auston breathes, and looks down at Matt’s mouth. Matt’s heart is in his throat, stuck looking at Auston looking at him, and Auston exhales. “Are you and Luke–”

 

“Not right now.”

 

Auston’s hands squeeze around his lower back, pulling Matt’s chest closer to his. Matt finds himself chasing the soft curve of Auston’s jaw against his.

 

“Not if you don’t want us to–” Matt starts, and the addendum dies on his lips. He lets himself die in the careful press of Auston’s mouth, the coax of his lips against Matt’s, the way Auston gives just enough and not enough and Matt’s left feeling the pull as Auston shifts slightly.

 

Matt’s so hungry to be touched, shaking with the need to have Auston close to him, the need to be needed, a silent, angry part of him suddenly begging to be fed.

 

“Please,” he begs, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own, an inevitable end. They may not get this again, but Auston sounds like he needs it too. “Please lock the door.”

 

“Okay,” Auston says, understanding, and kisses Matt’s forehead before pulling away.

  
  
  


 

VIII. You can tell a lot about someone by their vulnerable moments, especially by how many of them they choose to share.

 

So sue Matt. He has some delusions of grandeur, some invincibility in how he made a fucking  _ career  _ out of a sport by working his ass off, how thousands of people love his style and his name and the boxed quotes he serves media. But sometimes everyone needs to be handled like they're the singular most cared for thing in the world, have someone genuinely ask what’s wrong.

 

His answer is different depending on who asks. He picks and chooses how much he shares just like anyone would. and some constant self doubt influences that decision. He knows some people will judge him more than others for saying that Doughty deserved a black eye or Wilson got the five minute major that was coming to him. It’s bitter, this shield of vengeance he holds, and maybe not the most sustainable.

 

Loving takes courage. Being loved takes courage.

 

For now, he’ll gather the energy to spill his guts in between stepping on others’ toes.


End file.
